


Light & Dark

by AtlinMerrick



Series: Friendly Fire: Hux and Ben [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: All chapters stand alone, Canon-compliant except no!Snoke and no!murder, Kylux - Freeform, Lovers, M/M, Prompts prompts I love prompts please give them to me like candy, Silly and serious, Which I guess means it's not even remotely canon compliant, sex and humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:57:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6998662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man is made of moments, of times both light and dark. He's made of a parent's gentle touch, a stranger's cutting word, of how he lets these and so many other things change him.</p><p>Herein are the moments of a boy called Hux and one named Ben. Tiny tales of a boy who thought himself dark and one who was born to light, who each instead discover that they are both and neither, ever-changing, shaded in by words and will, thought and deed, but most of all by each other.</p><p>Shall we begin?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memories and Names

A man is made of moments, of times both light and dark. He's made of a parent's gentle touch, a stranger's cutting word, of how he lets these and so many other things change him.

Herein are the moments of a boy called Hux and one named Ben. Tiny tales of a boy who thought himself dark and one who was born to light, who each instead discover that they are both and neither, ever-changing, shaded in by words and will, thought and deed, but most of all by each other.

Here are the small stories of how Hux and Ben muddle themselves to manhood.

Shall we begin?

* Ben Organa Solo's first memory is of his father braiding his hair. Daddy must have done up Ben's waist-long mop a dozen times a dozen when Ben was small, but Ben's pretty sure he remembers each and every time. Mommy only ever did his braids perfectly, but daddy didn't try to tame Ben's mane to flawlessness. No, instead of making something photo-op fine, Han Solo _fiddled._ He finger-combed and parted then weaved Ben's hair into loose, fuzzy braids and while he did, daddy talked. Oh how he talked.

About mommy and what she was doing, about himself and where he was going, but the bits that Ben listened for, the bit he most loved, were the ones where daddy talked about places they'd go, all three. There were worlds of dry water, daddy said, planets of warm ice, there was a place where sea creatures grew silver shells just like the ones on mama's investiture necklace. Ben listened to these stories so solemn-quiet that now, when he braids his own hair before putting on the mask, he remembers one of those dozen times a dozen and Kylo Ren wonders if one day he'll find that warm ice planet or if he'll some day look into a tide pool and see the glint of silver-shelled creatures. Then Kylo Ren frowns, remembering that he must forget. But Ben? Well, Ben Organa Solo doesn't forget, he can't. He _won't._

* The first time Hux shaved his head bare he was a beardless boy. He stood in front of the mirror and ran both hands over his smooth, pale head—he was amazed there were even freckles _there_ —and he felt like he'd sprouted fast-fluttering wings in his chest. To not have all that ridiculous, horrible hair that didn't look like anyone else's, that stupid mess that looked like over-ripe Igaré fruit, oh the freedom of it was wonderful. He stood for an hour in front of that mirror, gleefully rubbing his bald head so much it went a bit pink. He didn't care about that, or that his big stupid eyebrows were still there and even worse than his hair.

Except later. Hux cared very much just a little later, when mummy made him shave off his eyebrows, too. To teach him "restraint" she said, to show him that every choice comes with a consequence. When Hux eventually stopped crying, and mummy did too, she carefully explained that children have responsibilities to rank, just as adults do. It would take Hux many lapses in restraint before he understood what his mother wished to teach, and it wouldn't be his mother who taught him, it would be other children. Because not only do some children very much know their place, they know how to put others in theirs. Whether with hair as bright as Arkanis' rarely-seen sun, or bare-headed, the children round Hux knew exactly where Hux belonged. And they made very sure to _put_ him there.

* The second attempt on Leia Organa's life came when she was not quite eight months pregnant, so gravid with child it seemed her babe took up enough room for two. It was her joke all the years Ben was little: "You were big enough for three babies, maybe four. I guess you were growing those long arms and legs."

That's when Ben would wave his kid limbs around like big old tentacles and promise mother he'd keep on growing, until he was bigger than her and daddy _both._ Mommy'd laugh and that was good because, though he was only little, Ben felt the whisper of his mother's memories. He knew she'd lost something before he was born, something good and terrible, something dear. So when he was small Ben promised himself he'd grow up very big because then maybe he could take up enough space to fill her emptiness and his own beside, blotting out that dark place full of memories he could never see.

* Hux remembers the day the Galactic Concordance was signed. His father tells him that's not possible, that Hux was only three and too young to understand the news, the rallies, why he hadn't even watched the parade holos. Yes, well Hux remembers just fine thank you, remembers that Arkanis' air smelled different that day, as if the jakkara had bloomed everywhere all at once. He remembers that the rain sparkled like stars on all the city's steel. Even though the Empire had fallen and the Alliance was in tatters everyone had still expected there would be more fighting. Then the concordance came and the concept of war among the stars suddenly seemed…foolish.

So, though he was only six (father's memory has never been good and gets ever worse) Hux remembers that day and he remembers knowing that he would grow up and be part of what was coming. He didn't know how, because you only need soldiers when people fight, right? Hux was eight when he figured out that some races need soldiers even more when they're at peace, learning that most valuable of lessons the day his mother was shot by M'Fee—her own aid, her _ally._ Yeah, Hux remembers. He remembers a lot of things.

* The first time Kylo Ren met Hux he was still sometimes calling himself Ben. Mostly. Though some days he just used a surname, but that changed too. Organa. Solo. Skywalker. On days still rarer, Ben gave nothing more than a grunt when introduced, suspicious of anyone claiming to want to know him, sure instead they wanted a path to his mother, a photo with his father, never believing, not one time ever believing that anyone right there in front of him saw _him._

So the first time Kylo Ren met Hux, he was surprised when the thin man nervously rattled off every name Ben called himself. Surely no one with eyes that serious, a back that straight, or a pretty mouth _that_ turned down was feeling awkward, not in front of _Ben,_ who stood there in rough leggings too short to meet his boots, post-practice hair so sweat-lank his ears looked like two halves of a BB unit stuck either side of his head. The thing though? Well, standing in that noise-filled dōjō, having just watched Ben Organa Solo Skywalker Ren Who-the-fuck-Ever make _art_ out of the martial, awkward is exactly what Hux was. And was again years later, smile-frowning and turning his back to Ben in their bed as a blush crept across his shoulder. "Don't remind me," he whispered, "I was a besotted fool for you even then."

* Unlike Kylo Ren, of names Hux has but one. Because, for all their power the peerage seem in want of much in the way of monikers, so when she was pregnant mother—the eighth to carry the name of some woman half a millennia dead—said the baby would be called Bharaon. Brendol Hux wouldn't hear of _that,_ insisting that the child carry his name. They argued about it for so long that the lazaretto ended up recording the infant's name simply as B. Hux. When Kylo asked what he'd been called growing up, Hux shrugged. "Mother called me Bharaon, father Brendol. I was the argument my parents never stopped having."

It was for this reason Ben expected an argument of his own the first time he called Hux Bee. Pretty much drunk on oxytocin, jakkara wine, and the freckled cock going at it in his ass, Kylo wasn't so far gone that he didn't hear himself panting _harder Bee, oh god harder_ after each grunting thrust. The thing is, Hux didn't argue, didn't sneer, Kylo figured maybe he didn't even hear. Except he did and always does. Because each time Ben calls him Bee, Hux buries his face into black hair and moans. Then he bites-nibbles-sucks at Kylo's neck and he takes a good long time gathering the sweet, sweaty pollen he finds there.

_I've no damned idea what my head canon is for this glorious pair other than no!Snoke and not!murderers so, as they wander across starship decks or planetside, these wee snippets aim to help me figure that out. Your prompt will help too, so please pretty please ask about their first loves, the providence of scars, talismans, or tattoos, anything, just any old thing. Thank you!_


	2. Marks Inside & Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben Solo Organa Et Cetera Et cetera's sexual revelation came along in about twelve stages. Of course it did, because Ben Solo Organa Etc. has rarely done a simple thing simply....

* Hux has a rather large tattoo, one which no one's noticed even when they've looked right at it. This is because Hux is white and so is his tattoo. The paler the skin the less obvious such a tattoo so, though Hux has _Order_ in neat white ink along his flexor carpi radialis not one person has ever noticed. If they did, Hux suspects they'd reflexively see _First_ there too, but the tat has nothing to do with that weak, bastard child of the Old Empire. While the purpose of many such markings is to proclaim a belief or an allegiance, _Order_ was Hux's sullen sixteen year old way of trying to lay claim to something his life was sorely lacking.

Like every tat, that white one has faded over the years and is hard to see unless a person is quite close. It's like Hux's newest tat that way and only one person has seen that one because that person applied it. Created with human blood in the stick-and-poke method as ancient as Taris itself, the tattoo is very small but very neat. Scribed in the ancient script of the Voni into the pale red flesh of Hux's left areola, to those in the know it reads simply _Ben._

* Though he has no tattoos, Kylo Ren's body is covered in marks: a firm splash of moles on his face and neck which have, for lack of a better word, a certain certitude. Like Ben's big body those moles are emphatically there, impossible to hide, resolute. However, for all their presence, there's a thing about Ben's moles no one knows. Their names.

The one on Ben's right shoulder blade is called Starboard, the one at the top of his spine Meridian. These names are murmured on those nights when Hux is fitfully awake and in answer Kylo pushes the covers away so they can pass the too-long hours making up stories about the stars they see on Ben's bare body. The galaxies on his shoulders, the solar systems on his belly, the lone sun nestled in the notch of his throat. Lately Hux has taken to naming the mole-free spots after black holes, so there's a pale patch on Kylo's foot called Fhost, Dreadnaught is over one pec, and there's Millicent somewhere neither of them will say because it's no one else's business. If Hux felt like admitting anything, and he doesn't, he'd admit that he…well he _pets_ Millicent. Quite a lot.

* No matter where in the galaxy one goes, one will discover that humans—those genetic anomalies so delicate and prone to break; soft, mostly-bare skin that comes in so _few_ colors—tend to sexually self-define. _I am…_ they will say, _which means I desire…_ They're usually pretty emphatic about it and, well, fair enough, Hux thinks, because such definitions can help narrow down a vast galaxy. Hux knows exactly when he arrived at his own definition, the very day he though _I desire_ and knew who that was. Lorkis was a Keshian boy with jet-black skin and he liked biting Hux's white fingers as if they were Alsakan sugar sticks. Sometimes Hux would day dream about Lorkis' mouth and those blunt, beautiful teeth until it went dark outside and his coursework was still woefully undone. Hux can't count how many times he came to thoughts of the boy. He does know that he was fifteen and could answer that bit of self-definition. _Humans. Boys. I like human boys._

* Ben's own sexual revelation came along in about twelve stages, of course it did, because Ben Organa Solo Et cetera Et cetera has rarely done a simple thing simply. So Ben's first awareness of himself sexually was the day he really, really liked the feel of his bare front rubbing on Chewie's back as the giant Wookiee piggy-backed his naked five-year-old body to bed. The next time Ben became aware of himself in this way was when he was ten and wondered if it was normal to want to stare at a Criloc horse's dick this long.

By the time Ben was twenty—he's always been slowly methodical about important things—Ben at last settled into his sexuality, where settle is here defined as at least picking a category, and that category was humanoid. So far that's as defined as Ben gets, since color, gender, size, and origin seem far less important to his desire than being desired in return. This is a far rarer occurrence than most would think, but that's fine. It led him here didn't it, to Hux, to being wrapped around four pale limbs with his face pressed into soft red hair, ear against a thin back while he listens to the steady thump-thump-thump of a fine and perfect heart.

_Danitheet mentioned tattoos and that turned in to the cool reality of[white ink tattoos](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/145379644399/skullspiration-skeleton-white-ink-tattoo-by), while Kimber wondered about Hux and Ben's first crushes. What do you wonder about these boys—prompt me!_


	3. Healing, Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back when he was Kylo Ren and Snoke was still alive, Ben thought everything needed healing. Wounds were bactad, breaks repaired, blood staunched.
> 
> Well, Ben has always been as foolish as he is Force-strong, so when he was still a young and foolish man he tried to repair what couldn't be repaired...

* For a boy who grew up among the stars, Kylo Ren is awfully fond of them. Where in others familiarity breeds boredom, for Ben, son of a soldier and a smuggler—two professions very rarely rooted—the stars have come to mean many things. In the Corellian system there's a constellation called _the bloodstripe._ This quintet of aligned suns remind Ben of a Coruscant coronation he once saw, with its vast but regimented crowds. Near Naboo there's a red-shift constellation called _the scar of remembrance,_ and these stars remind Ben of his family's tumultuous history. Near the Outer Rim there's a hot cluster of young stars called _the milky way_ and these fascinate Kylo most. No one's quite sure what these stars will be you see, and that potential? It enthralls him.

* Hux is not a boy. Even when he was he wasn't _quite,_ too aware of the weight of history and expectation, of being part of one by meeting the other. Still, back then he had a few ignorant, boyish thoughts, thinking that sex _progressed,_ for example, a linear thing where point A led to point orgasm. Fortunately he grew out of that foolishness and knows now that there are no points, no lines. Instead there's the effervescence of little kisses scattered along his spine by Ben's soft mouth. The suspended daydream of his hand running back and forth over Ben's chest as his sweetheart breathes deep in sleep. There's time for the slowness of titillation instead of satiation, time for talk amidst the touch. Between the bubbling up of passions great and small, there is time enough for love.

* Back when he was Kylo Ren and Snoke was still alive, Ben thought everything needed healing. Wounds were bactad, breaks repaired, blood staunched. Well, Ben _has_ always been as foolish as he is Force-strong, so when he was still a young and foolish man he tried to repair what couldn't _be_ repaired: A creature made powerful by his own breaking, by the steady drip-drip-drip of his own blood. Snoke never wanted to be whole; he'd made himself the ruin he was and in his unrelenting pain he knew terror and so he very much knew how to terrify. What a shame that as his apprentice he picked a boy too good or too stupid to be terrified. So one day Kylo Ren tried to heal his master and in the trying he destroyed him. And quite nearly himself. Ben does not heal now, no. Not anyone, not anything.

* Though he is a pragmatic man, Hux is not immune to the mysterious. So the first time he saw Ben's blade activated, Hux came in close. He'd never actually seen a real lightsaber before though, like everyone, he'd seen them in holos. There blue blades seemed nearly white, green blades glowed phosphorescent, and darksabers were used by lazy writers to signify _bad._ None of those looked like Ben's lightsaber though, its blade red and rough-hewn, crackling angry. Ben hadn't wanted to let Hux too close, but he'd begged pretty so Ben went temple statue-still, the sword held two handed in front of his face. Hux had crept close enough to see the heatless red fire dancing in Ben…in _Kylo Ren's_ eyes. It was then Hux understood why Ben rarely touches his saber and it's why he's never asked to see it again.

* Force users are long-lived they say, with the Force doubling or tripling a lifeform's lifespan. Yet longevity is in the perspective. Ben learned early that all life, no matter how long, was evanescent, and the greatest dangers to it did not come from outside. Grief, self-doubt, regret, loneliness…these are far more fatal and seem the special province of those cursed with the gift of the Force. After all, Force users have so many more chances to do things they regret or to live through times of grief. On wide-awake nights when Hux is sleeping sound, Ben watches his own fingers comb through slightly-long red hair and though he doesn't know if he will live a long time, he does know this: He will _live_ in the time he has.

* Hux's hands are neither big nor small, they're not delicate nor are they rough. They're serviceable and of service, and they have no particularly outstanding features. Maybe that's why Kylo's hands fascinate Hux, for they're nothing _but_ outstanding. They're big, more outsized even than the outsized man himself. They can be clumsy, small and fragile things equally at risk in those giant paws. They're often cold, as if by the time his blood reaches these extreme extremities it's just damn well _tired._ Yet it's none of these features that fascinate Hux. The wonder of Ben's hands is how carefully he runs the back of them over Hux's cheek, how gently they settle on Hux's belly, how _fey_ they are when Kylo looks at Hux through his lashes, biting the tip of his own finger. Though really, the most fascinating thing about Kylo's big, big hands will always be how perfectly they fit right around Hux's smaller one.

_I requested prompts to use for minutiae across three(ish) fandoms: Star Wars, the Star Wars teeny ship of[Techienician](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7377706/chapters/17437771), and [Sherlock](http://archiveofourown.org/works/441850/chapters/17436322). Dee offered 'phosphorescence,' Belpita followed with 'the milky way,' Spunky Expat with 'repairs,' and AnNa with 'effervescent' and 'evanescent.' Then Oorsprong kindly offered 'hands' when I begged her to quick-quick give me a prompt! Thank you all. P.S. Here's more about [bloodstripes](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Corellian_Bloodstripe), [the scar of remembrance](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Scar_of_remembrance), and [darksabers](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darksaber_\(lightsaber\)). _


End file.
